LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Southwest Power Pool, Inc., (SPP) announced that it will create a pool of industry experts that will review, rank, and score proposal responses for certain competitive transmission projects that are approved or endorsed for construction by the SPP Board of Directors. This process follows SPP’s Order 1000 Compliance filing that was approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on July 18, 2013.

After the creation of the expert pool and the approval of Competitive Upgrade projects for construction, a three-to-five person Industry Expert Panel (IEP) will be formed to comply with Order 1000 that requires certain transmission projects be competitively bid.

“These Industry Expert Panels will be utilized to review, rank, and score competitive proposals for transmission upgrades and make a recommendation to the SPP Board of Directors as to who should be the designated project developer. This is required to fulfill the requirements of Order 1000 under the SPP Tariff,” said Paul Suskie, Executive Vice President of Regulatory and General Counsel.

Selection of the industry pool will be based on a recommendation made by the SPP Oversight Committee and then approved by the SPP Board of Directors later this year.

“The use of industry experts will ensure independence in the competitive selection process to build transmission,” Suskie said.

Interested candidates must have documented expertise in at least one of the following areas:

1. Electric transmission engineering design

2. Electric transmission project management and construction

3. Electric transmission operations

4. Electric transmission rate design and analysis

5. Electric transmission finance

SPP’s review of expert pool applicants will begin June 1 and run through Sept. 1, with the first pool of experts selected by Nov. 1. For more information, please review the SPP Order 1000 Industry Expert webpage at www.spp.org or contact Ben Bright, Manager of Regulatory Processes, at bbright@spp.org.

About Southwest Power Pool, Inc.

Founded in 1941, SPP is a group of 76 members in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas that serve more than 15 million customers. Membership is comprised of investor-owned utilities, municipal systems, generation and transmission cooperatives, state authorities, wholesale generators, power marketers, and independent transmission companies.SPP's footprint includes 48,930 miles of transmission lines and 370,000 square miles of service territory. As a Regional Transmission Organization, SPP ensures reliable supplies of power, adequate transmission infrastructure, and competitive wholesale electricity prices. The SPP Regional Entity oversees compliance enforcement and reliability standards development. Learn more about SPP by visiting our Newsroom